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"Mr. Stark, hey! What's goin' on? I don't usually see you this side of the river?" When Peter had followed the sound of screaming and the snap of bones at close to 12 a.m., a siren song for vigilantes with super hearing, he had swung through the not-yet empty New York streets, ready to intervene. He didn't quite expect the pot at the end of this metaphorical rainbow to be the Avengers. But hey! Sometimes it's giant sewer lizard people (looking at you, Dr. Connors) or that one pterodactyl man who turns other people into dinosaus. And this time it wasn't! So at least he has that going for him.
The innocuous looking office building behind them was smoking slightly, belying whatever nefarious prerogatives made it dastardly enough for the Avengers to step in. And, well, you could say that made Peter a little nervous, antsy perhaps. Brunswick was on the border of Queens, firmly in Brooklyn but not by much geographically. So the thought of whatever scumbag organization--Hydra, likely, or something equally big and horrible--taking up shop so close to home made him feel like sinking under the film of red pushing at his temples for a while and not coming back up until his streets were clean.
Or as clean as a city that boasts rats the size of medium-sized house cats can be.
Which kind of sounds bad! He knows, but it's not that Peter is territorial or anything. Not like some of the other vigilantes out there. Take Daredevil, he practically pisses around the perimeter of Hell's Kitchen and hisses like a particularly aggressive tom cat whenever anyone mentions his part of the city.
Spider-Man, on the other hand, is a menace to every burough equally. So, Peter considers himself pretty lax about the whole turf thing because he definitely can't stake claim like that on all of New York without killing himself trying, though Ned and MJ might have something to say about his current patrol schedule.
Regardless, this metaphorical, and kind of literal, smoking gun got Peter invested. The kind of invested that invites Spider-Man crawling around, sticking his nose into your business for the next 1 to 2 weeks, or for however long it took him to take your shitty organization apart.
"Underoos?" Tony's voice crackles over the suit's speakers, meaning the hit he took earlier from the angry banger with the two-by-four wasn't as much of a love tap as he thought it was, if it did damage like that--"Isn't it past your bedtime or something?"
Peter made a face behind his mask.
Ruh-ude. Besides, Tony knows Peter's 'bedtime', had instituted it even, with a reluctant Aunt May's permission. (Not that Peter followed his curfew, it wasn't like Spider-Man was a parlor trick or a toy, he had a responsibility to the people of New York; to keep them safe, and crime didn't care about a curfew.) Which made the comment more suspicious than Tony would have perfered. Less banter, more begone. Which meant there is something Tony was trying to keep him from.
So Peter narrowed the lenses of his suit and listened.
He filtered out the rush of sirens about 6 blocks away, the various conversations in the apartment complex two roads down, the chatter on the radio left on in the kitchen of the pizzeria down the block. He ignored the sound of the smoke hissing past the cracks in the ruined building and the hum-whine of the Iron-man armor. He concentrated on the sound of several slowed heartbeats, more than a couple dozen people, each unconscious, identifiable as the goon squad that had earned tonight's beat down. The buzzing electrical of a relatively large computer system. And--there, the awkward, hollow echo of a chamber underneath the building, the sound bouncing off several unidentifiable objects, distorting it but revealing several rooms beneath the street. Something about the set up had his Spidey sense humming under his skin, minding him wrongwrongwrong, without it being urgenturgenturgent.
The thin soles of his suit landed softly ground level from where he was perched on a street light. He approached the two figures poised at the entrance of the building, but he spoke to the comms line Karen had been thoughtful enough to patch him through to.
"Hey everyone! Was just swinging by, heard the commotion! Need any extra helpful arachnid hands?" The cheer infused in his voice was to hide the edge of steel, anger curling possessively at his ribcage at the thought of people in his city hurt, at the thought of the wrongness at the base of his spine.
It was Black Widow, curiously enough, that answered him. Well, maybe not curiously. Natasha had always been observant, always looked and dug until she was satisfied she knew what made a person tick. And Peter Parker was still under her careful microscope. "We just finished up," she informed him, probing, setting up the bait, "Traffickers." She watched his approaching figure carefully, fully noticing as he stiffened, then dropped his weight low on his hips, gait turning darker, heavier than Spider-Man would typically allow. Losing the bounce and lightness in the way he carried himself. The minute twitch to her left made her aware Clint was also watching their youngest from his spot at the door.
The sharp intake of breath--Tony-- and the disappointed hum--Steve--let her know just how much they approved of her decision to tell the younger man the situation.
Not that she cared too much, she had a feeling they would be upset about a lot of things tonight, not necessarily all things she did, but things that were her fault nonetheless. That new angle of Spider-Man's shoulders had guaranteed quality super-spy meddling and she never delivered anything second rate.
It was just her, Clint, Tony, Steve, and Bucky on the ground tonight. It could have just been her and Clint, but Tony wanted to test a new toy, and Steve happened to overhear the mission brief and got invested in stopping the ring set up in his old haunts. Bucky, Natasha had invited. She knew a little about cleaning the red off your ledger, using skills that were honed to hurt, to help. And Bucky was hurting in a way that she could help with. The five of them were definitely overkill for the quality of criminal they were going for. Typically this kind of thing would go to vigilantes, or on this side of the river, the police. Natasha had stepped in for a few reasons, in part because Clint had asked her to when he caught wind of it and also to give Bucky an opportunity to reacclimate to saving people. Regardless, Spider-Man wasn't originally part of the equation. However, plans do change and she hadn't had a lot of time to analyze Tony's protégé in his 'natural habitat', so to speak. This gave her a window to rectify that.
So, with that one word, Natasha weaved her web and Spider-Man had stepped in it. Now, she just had to pick apart how he struggled.
Peter felt as if the word had slammed into him, physically. Traffickers. He bit down the red trying to swallow his vision again. Instead he distantly focused on the unsubtle trap that Widow set up. She was testing him, guaging something. He had no idea what, though. Nor was he likely to pass whatever test it was that she was giving him. So he did what he does with most non-life threatening life issues, hit that ignore call button really hard and hope they didn't call back.
Which left him with, well. Traffickers at the edge of Queens. Traffickers in New York. The anger bubbled up but he leashed it. Knew his temper too well to let it get the better of him over something that was already handled. He could consider himself an expert on restraint. Because Peter, Peter lived his life in degrees of control: his strength, his stickiness, his senses, his anger. He was intimate with this song and dance.
So. What to do? Easy. Vigilante business was rote at this point: find a baddy, kick ass, find more information to get a hold of any larger groups that also required some percussive negative reinforcement, rinse and repeat. With the first two steps neatly delivered by his not-quite coworkers, he just had to do the last bit. Just in case the rest of his colleagues weren't as well versed in Vigilante 101.
He pushed ahead, into the smoking shell and listened for the loudest heartbeat. The one that sounded closest to awake.
A body slumped, a room two floors up and one to the left of him, with a heartrate whose slow thrumming was warming slightly. He resolutely ignored the eyes of two spys trained on his back as he slipped up the stairs, footsteps silent and steady, towards his query.
The man was in question tall-ish, with long blond hair and heavyset shoulders, muscular and large all round. It was Spider-Man that hauled the man up and positioned him near the boarded up window at the end of the room, leaning heavily on the frame. Then a web secured the man's wrists together.
He then took a look around the room, ignoring the figures at the door who had followed him, and glancing towards the upturned furniture. Pushed to the back of the room was one of those water dispensers and a few cone cups still attached to the top. Bingo. Spider-Man got up and filled a cup, pulled off a glove, and dipped his finger in the water. Ice cold. Double bingo.
What'd he win? A wake up call!
He hummed lightly and moved towards the man.
He the unceremoniously upturned the cup on the man's face.
"Wakey, wakey Mr. Criminal! Welcome back to the land of the conscious!" The usual brightness of Spider-Man's voice was hollow, something not quite natural about the tilt of his head and the lull of his voice.
The man opened his eyes and scrambled back ineffectively, managing only to slam his head into the ledge of the window.
"Woah there, man! No need to hurt yourself!" He let out a light giggle. Not when there are so many other people here who would volunteer to do that for you, he didn't say, but his tone seemed to vaguely imply it anyways.
He heard a small scuffle behind him (Captain America had made his way up the stairs with Iron Man and the Winter Soldier (that wasn't right, maybe Sargent Barnes?) behind him, Black Widow blocked them from entering. Hawkeye kept everyone out of the doorway).
"The Spider-Man," his voice was challenging, but his heartbeat quickened and Spider-Man could smell his sweat, "ha! I thought I would have got a real hero, but looks like they sent the junior league to clean up!"
Spider-Man just cocked his head, "No. Not quite. I'm no superhero, junior or otherwise."
He ignored a small noise of protest from the hallway and the resulting slap of hand meeting metal faceplate.
His voice didn't lose its bubbly glee, "Now, let's make this easy, m'kay? You answer my questions--truthfully! You probably won't like what I'll do if you lie--and we can all go our separate ways, yeah? Awesome," Spider-Man steamrolled any possible answer, "Question 1, who do you work for?"
The man laughed in his face, "What makes you think we work for anyone, huh? This is our operation, we run everything!"
The man's heartrate ticked up.
Liar, liar pants on fire. He frowned.
Spider-Man let out a put upon sigh and an exaggerated hand movement, "I don't know why you guys always make me do this! Really, it's unnecessary." In the space of the next breath, he struck, slamming his fist straight through the window, boards and all, maybe an inch away from the man's face. The boards gave away with a crack, the glass shattered back into the alley and tinked against the dumpster below.
"That," Spider-Man remarked, like he was reprimanding a small child, complete with a finger wag and all, "was a warning shot. I told you, you wouldn't like what I'd do if you lied."
The man under him trembled as Spider-Man bunched his hands in the fabric of his shirt with an inhuman grip.
"Who do you work for?"
"I can't tell you! Please! He'll kill me!" His voice shook.
"He isn't your biggest concern right now," Spider-Man's voice had finally lost its effervescence, now flat and frosty flint, "Who. Do you. Work. For?" Each word was punctuated with an incremental lean out of the window, and by the end, half of the man's torso was dangling precariously over the ledge.
This time the shuffling at the door ventured into the room, but Spider-Man didn't let it shift his focus.
"Do you need some help?" He asked softly, sympathetic, "Fisk? Oscorp? One of the Italians? The Irish? Madame Gao?" He paused gently between names to take a closer listen to the man's heart.
Privately, Peter hoped it wasn't the last one, Spider-Man was prepared to take on anyone on that list, but in Peter's humble opinion, the goddamn ninjas really suck. A lot. Double D's stuff doesn't normally get any weirder than Spider-Man's, but the cult thing involving him and Danny always makes him want to cry a little bit. It's like they don't understand he has IB classes to fail. And then there was the whole 'dragon under Midtown Circle thing' that makes Matt really cagey and Jessica break something, and, on one notable occasion, someone, whenever anyone brings it up.
It's always a sad day when you remember that whatever the Punisher is doing is more zen than your mess.
The man under him whimpers and Peter realizes Spider-Man's grip has tightened significantly. Which, okay, not exactly intentional but it does push the man from scared, directly into terrified as evidenced by the stench of sweat and distinct smell of a blend of cortisol and adrenaline that pushes the spider in him to the forefront. Prey, his senses purred at him. No, he thought firmly as he pushed the thought away, bad spider.
"Who?" He snarled, more Daredevil than the rebranded 'Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man'.
"Okay! Okay! Please don't hurt me! It's-the-the... It's the Russians!"
Spider-Man tilts his head, consideringly. He's scared, but not lying, his heartbeat fast but steady, still pissing himself, but not stuttering.
He hummed, "Anatoly and Vladimir are both dead, Fisk took care of that. Pilgrim took out Kazan and Poloznev. So," he narrowed the lenses in his mask threateningly, "that begs my second question, who's running the Russians now?"
The man hesitated, "I don't know, I swear! We just call him The General!"
Still no lies. Spider-Man weighed that. It was semi-helpful. He would have to do a little more digging, but it was a start.
He straightened from his crouched position, still firmly holding the trafficker out of the window.
"They warned me about you," he said, accent prominent but it was only fear slurring his words, "they said you were not the same in the night as you are in the day. I laughed at them, told them you were not the Man Without Fear or the Punisher. But you--you are the same!"
Spider-Man just hums softly. He was a vigilante, so, you know, obviously not the poster child for dealing with emotions healthily by any means, so yeah. The comparison was fair in this case. Anger was hard to swallow for people like him, like them. The kind of people who knew that standing aside and hoping the police intervened before things got too bad wasn't an option. Because he knew that when you have power and bad things happen, they happen because of you. Because you didn't stop them.
"I told you earlier you wouldn't like what you would make me do if you lied to me, but then I remembered you kidnap and sell human beings, so you're probably not going to like what you force me to do anyways."
The man's eyes widen and his breathing quickens.
Spider-Man lets exactly what that means wash over him, lets the anger simmer under his skin, and lets his grip on the scumbag's shirt falter. The guy clutched at the hold on his shirt just a moment too late.
The scream cuts off as abruptly as it starts. Peter makes a mental note to make sure he gets some sort of protection for snitching, he wasn't about to let anyone die, regardless of how he felt about them.
The moment Spider-Man dropped the man out of the window, Steve and Tony shove past the pair of superspies and towards him as fast as they can. Natasha looked over at Clint, who lets out a low whistle.
The most unexpected part of the whole exchange wasn't really the elevation of Spider-Man's threat estimation, but the way Bucky helped Clint intercept the other two Avengers during the interrogation.
"Pe- Spider-Man! How could you do that? You've just killed someone!"
"Whoa, whoa, back up a sec!" Spider-Man exclaimed indignantly, "Killed is a bit of a misnomer! Like, sure, dude's limbs are bending a little extra in a couple places where they shouldn't bend, but dead's a bit of a stretch. He'll be fine! Well. He might not ever be able to effectively kidnap anyone anymore, but Honestly? I think that's an improvement."
"Still, what the hell was that? That wasn't friendly or neighborly!" Stark's snark was a poor cover for the genuine horror and anger underneath, "That's not what someone looking our for the little guy does!"
"Son, that was uncontrolled and excessive-" Steve started in at the confused and blank look Spider-Man was giving them.
It was then that Clint cut him off.
"Those didn't look like the Tracksuit Mafia. So, who're they?"
Spider-Man considered them for a second. Then he focused his attention on Clint. "The Russians closer to Hell's Kitchen and Harlem tend to be the Taxi guys. They'll move and sell anything, pretty much. People, drugs, whatever. If it needs moving, the Russians'll handle it. Up in Harlem, they take after with one of the Italians, Carbone or something? It's more Luke's department and she's in jail so I think he handled it. The Hell's Kitchen guys were handled with the OG Daredevil debut when the FBI was still labeling him a terrorist because of Fisk's bombs. And an incident with a car door. Also Fisk. But it's kinda gross so don't ask? Then Frank had a couple of run ins with the ones that took over for Anatoly and Vladimir, but those people are suuuper dead now. Not that Frank killed them, it was another dude, but still. Super. Dead. I took care of the group that was sniffing around Midtown and Queens, along with the Irish and the cartel that tried set up shop. But it looks like someone reestablished. I've gotta make some calls, see if anyone else's got an infestation of main branch Russian Mafia."
At Clint's slanted frown and the other's fidgeting he tacked on, "But at least it's not the Yakuza, am I right?" He tried to reassure them it could be worse.
"Frank?" Someone, probably Tony, asked faintly. Peter paused mentally at that. Yeah. He was pretty sure that Tony already knew he worked with the Punisher sometimes, but the reaction was kind of weirding him out so he decided against elaborating just in case he didn't. He didn't exactly want to freak Tony out even more than he already was.
"What's with the Yakuza?" Clint asked hesitantly.
"Ninjas." Peter scowled under the mask. "Stupid necromancing, blade poisoning, ninja cults. Also known as Iron Fist's problem. Maybe Daredevil's, if they really messed up."
Clint made a face a little like he hadn't cleared much up, but was going to stop asking questions anyways, because he wasn't getting anywhere less confusing.
So, Peter angled himself out of the window and shot a web at the dumpster, effectively sticking the now passed out man to the bin.
He poked his head back up to see Tony still staring down incredulously at him. And Steve looking a little like he was gonna start making containment plans for him.
Hmm.
Damage control.
But what was the problem? Peter backtracked a little. And, oh. That could be it? Maybe it was the show of force? He couldn't recall any mission where he had done anything like this with the Avengers, so they could just be a little surprised at seeing this side of his skill set in person instead of in reconnaissance and rumor. Because they had to know he did this. For sure. Hopefully?
He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Oh, yeesh, I guess that was a bit more violent than you were used to from me, huh? Sorry about that! I normally dial it up a little for things like this, I probably should've given you a heads up. My bad! The super strength is kind of startling, I guess."
"And how often do you get, 'a bit more violent', Spider-Man?" Natasha asked, tone edging into suspicious. His Spidey sense buzzed lightly at that, and he was starting to think maybe there was a misunderstanding somewhere.
Peter shot her a look, head tilted and he began to realize the bones of just what kind of test the Black Widow was putting him through. She was trying to find his limits. Which was strange, he was sure she had done her super-spy thing and knew everything about him. Maybe she wanted to hear him say it? Whatever the case, his best course of action was to be blunt, then.
"Have you ever asked a child molester to stop doing that, pretty please, as a friendly concerned party? I've seen it doesn't work out too well. So," Spider-Man did a little set of jazz hands, " the violence came before the friendly neighborhood stuff. It just had the unfortunate effect of being scary for the victims too, so I thought a rebranding would do a bit of good."
"And what, this kind of stuff is helping the little guy? Sticking to the neighborhood stuff?" Tony bit out. "Isn't this above your pay grade, you don't think?" And his tone was definitely the soft, danger filled trap that he sometimes had teachers use when he was 10 and they asked him, 'Peter, did you really think your fists would solve anything?' To which the answer was yes, duh. He wouldn't have swung them otherwise, rest assured he did think about it. He always hated that tone, because no matter what he answered, it was never what they were looking for.
But that did beg the question. Did they really not know just how firmly he was entrenched in the vigilante side of the crime fighting spectrum?
"This is sticking to the neighborhood stuff. This is the kind of crime that happened in my neighborhood, Mr. Stark," he replied, a little confused, "What, did you think all I did was help people cross the street and save cats out of trees? That the most dangerous thing I stop are muggings?"
The face Tony was making made him realize that, yes, that was exactly what he thought. Further inspection of the group in front of him revealed that the only ones who didn't were Sargent Barnes and to some extent, Clint. And didn't that make some of the condescension and what he had thought were disparaging comments about his competency make a lot more sense. Huh. He'll have a crisis about this later, he decides. Right now, he feels compelled to explain.
"That's not the only kind of crime you find on the streets. I mean I asked for your help with the Vulture because it was alien tech, not because it was my first arms ring. Before I was Spider-Man, when I was just running around in dark clothes, not the get up you found me with, when people first began identifying me, they just called me The Spider. I cleared out traffickers this side of the island and I took down a good chunk of the gangs getting kids involved. I made sure people knew what would happen to them if they were taking advantage of kids or women or whoever's the most vulnerable."
Peter stared intently at Tony and Steve, who had disbelief and shock painted across their features.
"Look, I thought you knew? I was never trying to hide it from you, but in hindsight this explains a lot, " he murmurs that last part to himself, "I guess this just means we'll have to reacquaint ourselves."
Peter smiled slightly at them, lenses on his suit crinkling.
"Reacquaint ourselves?" Tony asked, incredulously.
The Winter Soldier gave Peter an evaluating look before nodding and gripping a stunned looking Steve by the arms. "Let me know if you need any help, kid." He paused uncertaintly for a second before adding, "Happy hunting."
It was Spider-Man, not Peter, who beamed at him from behind the mask, "Thank you! But they really won't take me seriously if I bring the Avengers with me anytime I do something. I'll let you know if I need back up though! We'll make it a party!"
With a nod to Hawkeye, who was steering a seething Tony out of the room and a tense glance towards Natasha, Peter slipped out of the window and into the smog filled New York City night.
Peter was a little restless after the whole debacle, but he needed answers about the Russians, so he sent out a few messages and then put his nose to the ground. Someone had been taking people off the street and he hadn't noticed. Well, they had his attention now.
Happy hunting, indeed, he thought and the spider in him hissed an agreement.